


borrowed time

by crashstiel



Category: Marvel, X-Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashstiel/pseuds/crashstiel
Summary: Charles reaches out, grabs Logan’s jaw, turns his face towards him. It’s almost sincere, the look placating his face, he thinks for a brief moment that the recognition has fallen on Charles’s features once more. He almost lets himself relax, lets his eyelids close, and the walls to come down. Almost lets the tragedy slip for one moment.Almost. Then Charles speaks.“What a disappointment you are,” he states.He shoves Charles’ hand away, letting him fall back against the pinstriped pillow. Charles sits in the light that breaks through the cracks of the tank, dust particles in the air. Shadows marr Logan’s face, hiding the scars there, too. Time rushes in, tearing at the seams. The melancholy, the regret wormed its way between them once more. It always does.





	borrowed time

Charles reaches out, grabs Logan’s jaw, turns his face towards him. It’s almost sincere, the look placating his face, he thinks for a brief moment that the recognition has fallen on Charles’s features once more-- that he now remembers Jean, and Scott, and Ororo, and even Erik, that he remembers the good, and what was, the change that Logan did once bear. He almost lets himself relax, lets his eyelids close, and the walls to come down, almost lets the love and loss weigh him down where it could be seen, when instead it does silently, buried. Almost lets the tragedy slip for one moment.

Almost. Then Charles speaks.

“What a disappointment you are,” he states.

He shoves Charles’ hand away, letting him fall back against the pinstriped pillow. Charles sits in the light that breaks through the cracks of the tank, dust particles in the air. Shadows marr Logan’s face, hiding the scars there, too. Time rushes in, tearing at the seams. The melancholy, the regret wormed its way between them once more. It always does.

 

/-/

 

Charles doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know of the lives that he took, so accidentally, so heartbreakingly. He doesn’t know of what Logan carries for him, what the rest of the world knows about him. A degenerative disease in the most powerful mind among them all. Living deep inside him alongside empathy, sorrow, love; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It wasn’t ever something Charles meant. Loss of control.

Logan doesn’t tell him about Jean, Scott, Ororo, Rogue, Hank, Kurt. He doesn’t tell him about Erik.

 

/-/

 

There’s no living with a killing ; all the same.

It’s a dream, Logan is aware of that much. He isn’t so far gone he doesn’t realize that Charles isn’t really there-- can’t really be there, not when he’s buried in the black soil of Wyoming, a stranger to him, however, allowing him this final peace-- he just doesn’t remember falling asleep. He guesses, with a slight sick drop in his stomach, that it was probably at the wheel of the Jeep. [Laura’s hands surely steering the wheel each time he swerved despite his hard looks and grip getting tighter in false reassurances.]

It’s a dream, which is why the plants grow happily over the sides of plastic containers, like they’re reaching for Charles’ hands, his tending. Which is why his eyes are clear when they meet Logan’s, and he doesn’t feel the poison swimming in his veins with each forced breath. A dream.

“Logan,” Charles says, smiling gently. There’s something constricting Logan now, tight around his lungs and heart.

“Charles,” he barely gets out, words falling short, for once he doesn’t have something to say.

“How is Laura?” he asks, hands slowing their tending of the plant he’s holding, and it’s strange for this Charles to be asking about her, here, when they are in the tipped over tank, a place that held many words, but none about her-- a place before her, before she came in, claws out and teeth bared.

“She’s, uh-- she’s strong,” a beat passes. “Stronger than me, than I ever was. And she’s-- she’s good, Charles,” he says, plainitive, he doesn’t have to say unlike me out loud because Charles hears it anyways. He hears the good despite where she came from. There’s never been hidden words, not with him.

“What you’re giving her, it’s real. It’s something that I tried to give to you,” he hears the tried, the regret that it holds, “and you’re better than you think you are. You’ve been forced to fight, she has, I have-- people like us get backed into that, but that doesn’t take away the good within you. You ending up here-- tending to a nonagenarian who doesn’t recognize you half the time-- ending up here despite what you deserve, what should have become of you, it’s something that, however much I wish you didn’t have to, only you could bear. I wish it had ended up differently. But, Logan, you still have time.”

He scoffs, a laugh coming to tinge on the end. The words settle for hardly a second longer before his face flashes anger, smile deprecating, disbelieving. His teeth are sharp, canines flashing in the low light. “What the hell do you mean by that? Having time?” his voice goes higher. “You planned on dying? Thinking, oh, here’s some goddamned free time for you,” the words are bitter on his tongue, and escape easily. “Men like me are on borrowed time. Every second with Jean, with Mariko was stolen. Every day here medicating you, and seeing you regress was stolen. I’ve never fucking had time, Charles.” The anger flares up in him, hemorrhages-- misdirected hopelessly-- controlling him, like a puppet on strings.

Charles looks at him under the fluorescent lights, half his height sitting, gaze softer than he deserves. It’s like it’s 30 years ago. He’s sick to his stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this about a year ago, just a collection of thoughts and sadnesses and love yous to them, and since i’m about to rewatch logan, i figured i’d post it. i miss them dearly. the tragedy sits heavy.


End file.
